Comeback

shoot somebody. I don't know how long it's gonna take Jack and me to get him to leave, so don't be in any hurry to go anywhere.'

Liss then joined Parker and the money in the anteroom, while Mackey raved at the people a while on his own. Looking down at Carmody, some dried blood on the side of the fellow's head looking fake against the angel makeup, Liss said, 'Is he gonna hold?'

Parker had already put his shotgun in the empty duffel bag. Holding it open for Liss's weapon, he said, 'He'll hold.'

'I'm the one he could identify,' Liss said. He didn't put the shotgun in the duffel. He said, 'I'm the one exposed if he breaks.'

'If you kill him,' Parker said, 'they'll know he was the inside man. They'll look at who he knew, through that parole scam. They'll get to you for sure.'

Liss thought about that. Mackey came out, shutting the door, and looked at them. 'Something?'

'No,' Liss said, and put his shotgun in the bag.

Mackey put his weapon with the others and said, 'They'll stay in there a while. They'll stay in there until their pants dry.' Then they tossed their ski masks into the bag with the guns, and left, each carrying two bags, Mackey carrying the heavier one with the guns.

Back where they'd come into the building, Parker cautiously opened the door and looked out. The parking lot was full of cars and empty of people. This was why they'd given up the idea of going for the money outside in the barrels. They would have had to wait until the crusade finished and everybody was out and moving. This way was cleaner and simpler.

The three moved quickly across the asphalt lot through the cars. It was a bright sunny fall day, temperature in the fifties, air very crisp and clear. They seemed to shimmy and disappear as they moved through the varicolored parked cars.

At the far end of the parking lot, five days ago, a construction company trailer had been set up here, wheeled in behind a semi cab, then chocked up and the perimeter beneath closed with concrete blocks. A sign on the side of the trailer read, in large blue letters on a white ground, MORAN CONSTRUCTION, site manager's office.

This was a legitimate trailer from a legitimate construction company, now bankrupt and shut down, but its assets not yet sold. The trailer had been stolen from the company's yard, using a cab that also belonged to the company. Once it was in position here, Mackey had hooked up the electric lines to a nearby power pole, and then they'd just left the thing alone. Archibald's crusade hadn't even been in this state when they'd moved the trailer into position. Such trailers are so often to be found in distant corners of large public parking areas that nobody looks twice at them. This one had been left undisturbed for five days.

Now, Parker did the combination on the padlock on the door and climbed up and in, followed by Liss and then by Mackey. They entered a cramped office, with desk and chair on one side and narrow hard sofa on the other, on and around which they dumped the duffel bags. To the right of the office was the john, complete with a very narrow shower—the trailer contained its own water supply and waste storage— and to the left was a compact living room, with built-in sofas, a bookcase full of magazines and paperbacks, and a small black-and-white television set. Beyond the living room was a galley-type kitchen; five days ago, they'd stocked that with beer and soda and canned food.

There was a small sliding window in the entry door, covered on the inside by a stretched-tight translucent plastic curtain. Once they were inside, Parker removed that curtain, unlatched the window, slid the openable half out of the way, reached out, and reattached the padlock to the hasp on the door, locking them in. Then he slid the window shut, latched it, and put the curtain back in place.

Mackey came in from the kitchen with three cans of beer. Distributing them, he said, 'Parker, I like this. It's very good. This is the most comfortable escape from a heist I ever made.'

'Bad news to be running around out there now,' Parker said.

'You know it.' Mackey popped open his beer. 'To a life of ease,' he said.

Liss knocked back about half his beer, but still looked troubled. 'Now,' he said, 'all Tom has to do is not make me sorry he's still alive.'

6

It was a mess in the parking lot for a couple hours. Police cars and police lab vans blocked the aisles. An ambulance came and went, yowling, most likely dealing with Tom Carmody. Long tables were set up near the main arena entrance, where clerical cops processed the crusade's attendees, taking their IDs and giving them a few quick questions each, as the former crusade audience stood in long nervous patient lines. More cops searched every car before permitting it to be driven away. Twenty thousand people; every one of them given personal attention. It took a while.

Twice in the course of the afternoon, cops came over to the construction trailer to fiddle with the padlock and test the door to be sure it was locked and then knock on it, just in case. The second one did even more, walking all around the trailer to see if there was any other way in, then trying to look in through the three windows; the one in the door leading to the office, the large one in the living room through which Parker and Mackey and Liss occasionally watched the action outside, and the small high one in the john. But they were all covered by the translucent plastic curtains, so he gave up, and contented himself with copying down the Moran Construction Company phone number from the sign on the trailer's side. He wouldn't get much satisfaction if he actually dialed that number. Out of service, most likely.

The cops were nowhere near finished when it started to get dark, so three floodlight trucks were brought in and parked strategically to drench the area in light. Even at the fringe of the action, where Parker and the other two waited, there was plenty of illumination. It spilled into the trailer, giving them all the light they needed, softening into a pale coral color as if filtered through the curtains.

In that soft illumination, Parker and Mackey and Liss sat around the desk in the office and counted the money, which came to three hundred ninety-eight thousand, five hundred eighty dollars, all in fives and tens and twenties, and even some wrinkled singles. About as traceable as a drop of water.

After that, they mostly watched television, with the sound very low. Which meant they mostly watched other